Project expected to transform Starbuck Island

Oil tank farms yield to apartments, marina at historic site

1of21Center or Starbuck Island is being cleared and prepared for construction of new housing, retail and restaurants Thursday August 9, 2018 in Green Island, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)John Carl D'Annibale/Albany Times Union2of21Center or Starbuck Island is being cleared and prepared for construction of new housing, retail and restaurants Thursday August 9, 2018 in Green Island, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)John Carl D'Annibale/Albany Times Union3of21Center or Starbuck Island is being cleared and prepared for construction of new housing, retail and restaurants Thursday August 9, 2018 in Green Island, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)John Carl D'Annibale/Albany Times Union4of21Center or Starbuck Island is being cleared and prepared for construction of new housing, retail and restaurants Thursday August 9, 2018 in Green Island, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)John Carl D'Annibale/Albany Times Union5of21

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Green Island

Schenectady, with its General Electric and American Locomotive plants, may have lighted and hauled the world. But for a while in the 1800s, Green Island and Troy could claim to have heated it.

The Starbuck Foundry, located on what today is called Center Island, part of the village of Green Island, produced a wide range of products out of molten iron, everything from columns, window caps and building facades, to plows, mills for processing tree bark, and cast iron stoves for heating and cooking.

The stove's design made it at the time the most popular in the nation, recalled P. Thomas Carroll, a cultural historian and senior scholar at the Troy-based Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway. Foundries in Troy later produced the stove.

The foundry is gone, replaced by an oil terminal that occupied the island's southern half from 1918 to 2008.

Now, a massive residential, retail and restaurant development is under way, with a name that harkens back to the Starbuck legacy.

The once heavily polluted Hudson River is again attracting attention from developers seeking to capitalize on its river views and location. The north end of the island, bisected by the Green Island Bridge, has already been developed into apartments.

On Starbuck Island, as it was once known, an environmental cleanup effort is winding down and construction on a $60 million residential, retail and restaurant development is expected to get under way next month, according to Green Island officials.

Developer Peter Luizzi has ambitious plans to turn the former eyesore into an island retreat of sorts, just a short stroll across the bridge from downtown Troy. Others describe a development that sounds almost like a resort destination.

The project will include up to 270 apartments, with rooftop terraces or balconies, a swimming pool, tennis courts and boat slips, underground parking, a fitness center, waterfront restaurant and retail and office space, according to Luizzi Companies.

And it's a short walk across the Green Island Bridge to Troy's waterfront entertainment district, with its restaurants, brewpubs and other amenities.

Oil-tainted soil has been removed, said Michael Alix, Luizzi's vice president, and the developer is working on final designs and on stabilizing the slope at the edge of the island.

The project, Alix added, has "gotten nothing but positive feedback from everybody."

The project was launched in September 2016 when the developer applied to the state Department of Environmental Conservation to have it accepted into the DEC's Brownfield Cleanup Program, making it eligible for tax credits based on the cost of the cleanup.

The oil terminal, operated by King Fuels, closed down in 2008, 90 years after a terminal first began operating at the site. Most of the property remained vacant until Luizzi proposed the environmental cleanup and redevelopment.

The region is steeped in industrial history.

Ford, naturalist William Burroughs, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone camped nearby before Ford built an auto plant that operated into the late 1980s. An adjacent hydroelectric plant continues to generate power for the community.

Starbuck Island also had a baseball field that hosted games by professional baseball's Troy Haymakers on Sundays, when Sunday blue laws prevented them in Troy, said Ward. That bit of history may have drawn famed slugger Babe Ruth to visit the island; Ward displayed a photo of him with local youngsters.

Late last year, the Luizzi project was awarded a $1.8 million Regional Economic Development Council grant. The funds will enable Peter Luizzi to add an open-air amphitheater and larger marina to his project. He also plans a riverfront promenade.

Some of the planned apartments will be designated for senior citizens and will be among the first to be built, said Alix.

On Friday, Carroll seemed pleased with the redevelopment plans.

"It's nice to see it being put back to some kind of taxable use," he said. "I'm delighted to see how much interest there is in Troy and across the way in Green Island."